Voice mail apparatus and method of processing voice mail

ABSTRACT

A voice mail apparatus and a method of processing voice mail are provided. Upon taking out digitized voice from a memory, a sender identifier identifies a proper number of a sender of the digitized voice. A retrieval of a table is performed to find an address corresponding to the proper number. A documentation converter converts reply voice to digitized document. The digitized document of the reply voice is transmitted by a transmitter to an address of the sender.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

[0001] The present invention relates to a voice mail apparatus and amethod of processing voice mail, which may be usable in exchanging,within a computer network, information by voice massage or document withvoice message attachment.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] The term “voice mail service” is herein used to mean a service tostore digitized voice message from a sender into a memory accessible bya receiver and to take out document data from the sender in terms ofvoice message. A voice mail apparatus employed for such a voice mailservice includes a memory provided in an information network. Storageregions of the memory are assigned to registered terminals,respectively.

[0003] According to a known voice mail apparatus, among voice mail usersregistered at the apparatus, a voice mail sender can send a voice mailto a voice mail receiver and the voice mail receiver can reply to thevoice mail sender by calling the voice mail sender.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0004] An object of the present invention is to provide a voice mailapparatus and a method of processing voice mail wherein a voice mailreceiver can reply to a voice mail sender quickly and without callingthe voice mail sender.

[0005] According to one aspect of the present invention, there isprovided a voice mail apparatus comprising:

[0006] a memory to store received digitized voice from a sender;

[0007] an identifier to identify the sender that has sent the digitizedvoice; and

[0008] a table containing plural addresses against plural senders,respectively.

[0009] According to a specific aspect of the present invention, there isprovided a voice mail apparatus comprising:

[0010] a memory to store received digitized voice from a sender;

[0011] an identifier to identify a proper sender number of the senderthat has sent the digitized voice; and

[0012] a table containing plural addresses against plural proper sendernumbers of plural senders, respectively.

[0013] According to another aspect of the present invention, there isprovided a method of processing voice mail comprising the steps of:

[0014] identifying a sender of digitized voice upon taking out thedigitized voice from a memory; and

[0015] performing retrieval of a table to find an address of the sender.

[0016] According to a further aspect of the present invention, there isprovided a method of processing voice mail comprising the steps of:

[0017] identifying a proper number of a sender of digitized voice upontaking out the digitized voice from a memory; and

[0018] performing retrieval of a table to find an address correspondingto the proper number.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0019]FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a preferred embodiment of avoice mail apparatus according to the present invention.

[0020]FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating a communication networkinto which the voice mail apparatus is placed.

[0021]FIG. 3 illustrates content of information on a table within thevoice mail apparatus.

[0022]FIG. 4 is a flow diagram of a processing flow.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

[0023] Referring to the accompanying drawings, FIG. 1 shows anembodiment of a voice mall apparatus 20 according to the presentinvention. The voice mail apparatus 20 includes a control unit 21, aline interface 24, an E-mail transmitter 22, a memory 23, a sendernumber identifier 26 and a table 25. The control unit 21 controls theline interface 24, E-mail transmitter 22, memory 23, sender numberidentifier 26 and table 25.

[0024] The line interface 24 interconnects the voice mail apparatus 20and a private branch exchange 30 (see FIG. 2). The E-mail transmitter 22transmits E-mail to a E-mail server 10 (see FIG. 2). The memory 23stores voice mails and the sender number identifier 26 identifies asender number attached to each received voice mail. The table 25 storesE-mail addresses against sender numbers.

[0025]FIG. 2 illustrates a network incorporating the embodiment of voicemail apparatus 20 according to the present invention. In this network,the voice mail apparatus 20 is connected to a local area network (LAN)70. The LAN 70 includes E-mail server 10 and plural computers 50 andconnected via gateway 80 to computer network 90. The gateway 80 may takethe form of a provider. The computer network 90 may take the form ofinternet and/or intranet.

[0026] The voice mail apparatus 20 is connected to a private branchexchange 30 including plural telephone sets 60. The private branchexchange 30 is connected to a public telephone line network 40.

[0027] Telephone sets 61 and 62 are connected to the public telephoneline network 40. The telephone set 62 may take the form of a subscribedtelephone set in a family 71. The family 71 may have a computer,preferably, a personal computer 51, connected to the computer network90.

[0028] In the embodiment, the table 25 stores E-mail addressescorresponding to sender numbers of the subscribers of this voice mailservice.

[0029] As shown in FIG. 3, the table 25 stores E-mail addresses B1, B2 .. . Bn corresponding to sender numbers A1, A2 . . . An, respectively.

[0030] The flow diagram of FIG. 4 illustrates a control routine of thepreferred implementation of the present invention. It is now assumedthat the telephone set 62 sends a voice mail to the telephone set 61.The telephone set 62 is connected via the public telephone line network40 and the private branch exchange 30 to the voice mail apparatus 20.The voice mail apparatus 20 stores the voice mail in the memory 23. Instep 101, the control routine determines whether or not the voice mailapparatus 20 has received any new voice mail. The control routinerepeats this determination in step 101 unless new voice mail has beenstored in the memory 23. Immediately after the memory 23 has stored newvoice mail, the control routine proceeds from step 101 to step 102 andthe sender number identifier 26 identifies sender number A2corresponding to the telephone set 62. The voice mail apparatus 20 holdsthe voice mail at an address corresponding to the sender number A2within the memory 23. In step 102, the control routine determineswhether or not the telephone set 61 has taken out the voice mail fromthe telephone set 62 from the memory 23. The telephone set 61 isconnected to the voice mail apparatus 20 via the public telephone linenetwork 40 and the private branch exchange 30. The control routinerepeats this determination in step 102 unless the telephone set 61 hastaken out the voice mail from the memory 23.

[0031] Immediately after the telephone set 61 has taken out the voicemail from the memory 23, the control routine determines whether or not areply request by the telephone set 61 is available in step 103. In thisimplementation, dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF) signaling is used tosend this request.

[0032] If, in step 103, it is determined that there is no reply requestfrom the telephone set 61, the control routine comes to an end. If, instep 103, there is reply request from the telephone set 61, the controlroutine proceeds to step 104. In step 104, the control unit 21determines whether or not the sender number A2 is available in the table25.

[0033] If, in step 104, it is determined that the table 25 contains thesender number A2, the control routine proceeds to step 105. In step 105,the control unit 21 determines whether or not the table 25 contains anE-mail address B2 corresponding to the sender number A2 after performingretrieval operation of the table 25 against the sender number A2. If, instep 105, the control unit 21 finds the E-mail address B2 correspondingto the sender number A2, the interrogation in this step results inaffirmative. Then, the control routine proceeds to step 107.

[0034] If the interrogation in step 104 results in negative or theinterrogation in step 105 results in negative, the control routineproceeds to step 106. This is the case where the table 25 does notcontain the sender number A2 or the E-mail address B2 corresponding tothe sender number A2. In this case, the voice mail apparatus 20 sends tothe telephone set 61 voice announcement that reply by E-mail isimpossible (step 106) before the control routine comes to an end.

[0035] Unless the telephone set 61 receives the voice announcement thatreply by E-mail is impossible, the telephone set 61 may send itsoperator voice reply message to the voice mail apparatus 20. The memory23 stores the operator voice reply message. In step 107, the controlunit 21 determines whether or not the memory 23 has stored the operatorvoice reply message sent by the telephone set 61.

[0036] The control routine repeats this determination in step 107 unlessthe memory 23 has stored the operator voice reply message. If, in step107, it is determined that the memory has stored the voice replymessage, the control routine proceeds to step 108.

[0037] In step 108, the voice mail apparatus 20 sends to an E-mailserver 10 an E-mail against the E-mail address B2 from a proper E-mailaddress of the voice mail apparatus 20. Specifically, The E-mailtransmitter 22 transmits the E-mail with the voice reply messageattachment via the LAN 70 to the E-mail server 10.

[0038] The E-mail server 10 sends the E-mail with the voice replymessage attachment to the computer 51 having the E-mail address B2 viathe LAN 70 and the computer network 90. E-mail receiver may hear thevoice reply message attached to the E-mail by operating the computer 51.

[0039] If it is desired to read voice reply message in terms ofsentences, the voice mail apparatus may be modified to have a mediaconverter to convert voice reply message into text for sending asE-mail. In this case, receiver of the E-mail can read the voice replymessage.

[0040] The voice mail apparatus may have a table containing E-mailaddresses against voice mail users, respectively. Using this table, thevoice mail apparatus uses E-mail address of a voice mail user as asender address in sending a reply E-mail to a receiver. In this case,the receiver can recognize the sender before taking out the replymessage.

[0041] From the preceding description of the embodiments, it isappreciated that a voice mail receiver can reply to a voice mail senderquickly and without any call to the sender.

[0042] The above-described voice mail implementation of the presentinvention is an example implementation. Moreover, various modificationsto the present invention may occur to those skilled in the art and willfall within the scope of the present invention as set forth below.

What is claimed is:
 1. A voice mail apparatus comprising: a memory tostore received digitized voice from a sender; an identifier to identifythe sender that has sent the digitized voice; and a table containingplural addresses against plural senders, respectively.
 2. A voice mailapparatus comprising: a memory to store received digitized voice from asender; an identifier to identify a proper sender number of the senderthat has sent the digitized voice; and a table containing pluraladdresses against plural proper sender numbers of plural senders,respectively.
 3. The voice mail apparatus as claimed in claim 1, whereinthe memory also stores received digitized document.
 4. The voice mailapparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the memory also stores receiveddigitized document.
 5. The voice mail apparatus as claimed in claim 1,further comprises a transmitter to transmit digitized reply document anddigitized reply voice.
 6. The voice mail apparatus as claimed in claim2, further comprises a transmitter to transmit digitized reply documentand digitized reply voice.
 7. The voice mail apparatus as claimed inclaim 1, further comprises: a documentation converter to convert replyvoice to digitized reply document; and a transmitter to transmit thedigitized reply document to the sender.
 8. The voice mail apparatus asclaimed in claim 2, further comprises: a documentation converter toconvert reply voice to digitized reply document; and a transmitter totransmit the digitized reply document to the sender.
 9. The voice mailapparatus as claimed in claim 3, further comprises: a documentationconverter to convert reply voice to digitized reply document; and atransmitter to transmit the digitized reply document to the sender. 10.The voice mail apparatus as claimed in claim 4, further comprises: adocumentation converter to convert reply voice to digitized replydocument; and a transmitter to transmit the digitized reply document tothe sender.
 11. A method of processing voice mail comprising the stepsof: identifying a sender of digitized voice upon taking out thedigitized voice from a memory; and performing retrieval of a table tofind an address of the sender.
 12. A method of processing voice mailcomprising the steps of: identifying a proper number of a sender ofdigitized voice upon taking out the digitized voice from a memory; andperforming retrieval of a table to find an address corresponding to theproper number.
 13. The method of processing voice mail as claimed inclaim 11, further comprising the step of: transmitting digitized replydocument and digitized reply voice to the address that has been foundafter performing retrieval of the table.
 14. The method of processingvoice mail as claimed in claim 12, further comprising the step of:transmitting digitized reply document and digitized reply voice to theaddress that has been found after performing retrieval of the table. 15.The method of processing voice mail as claimed in claim 11, furthercomprises: converting reply voice addressed to the sender to digitizeddocument; and transmitting the digitized document to the address of thesender.
 16. The method of processing voice mail as claimed in claim 12,further comprises: converting reply voice addressed to the sender todigitized document; and transmitting the digitized document to theaddress of the sender.